You submitted passages: one in Matthew chapter 7.
Matthew 7:7:
Ask, and it shall be given you;
seek, and ye shall find;
knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
And then Luke 18, the first eight verses.
Luke 18:1-8:
And He spake a parable unto them to the end that they ought always to pray, and not to faint;
saying, There was in a city a judge, who feared not God, and regarded not man:
and there was a widow in that city; and she came oft unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.
And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man;
yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest she wear me out by her continual coming.
And the Lord said, Hear what the unrighteous judge saith.
And shall not God avenge His elect, that cry to Him day and night, and yet He is longsuffering over them?
I say unto you, that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?
We mentioned last time that corporate prayer can never rise above the level of our personal, private prayer. In other words, if we, in our private life, have a prayer life, then, when we come together to pray, that corporate prayer will be strong. But if we, in our daily life, do not have a real prayer life, then, when we come together, our prayer time will be weak.
We need to pray without ceasing. That is, we need to cultivate a habit and attitude of always looking to the Lord, waiting upon the Lord, with a prayerful attitude. That should be our prayer life.
And this evening I would like to mention another thing which is important, not only in our personal prayer but also in our praying together. Whenever we pray, we need to pray to the end. In other words, pray through.
We should not just pray and then cease. “Pray without ceasing” not only speaks of our need always to pray, but also of our need to continue to pray until what we pray for is answered. We need to pray through.
Our problem is that oftentimes we pray for something, either privately or publicly, and then we just stop praying altogether. No wonder we find that our prayers are not answered as they should.
So, in Matthew 7:7, we have the simplest instruction on this matter of prayer:
Ask, and it shall be given you;
seek, and ye shall find;
knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
Now, we know that in the original it means, “Keep on asking, and it shall be given to you. Keep on seeking, and ye shall find. Keep on knocking, and it shall be opened to you.”
So the very verse shows us that we need to keep on—not just ask once and drop it; not just seek for a moment and then go somewhere else; nor just knock once and then disappear before the door is opened. The very verse tells us that we need to keep on asking.
Now, if there is something that we feel we need to ask God for, if there is a legitimate need—for immediately you find that if you ask for bread or if you ask for fish, you are asking for that which is legitimate, your necessity, not luxury—then we should ask. We should ask our Heavenly Father, and we should keep on asking until it is given to us.
But sometimes you find that you ask, and you keep on asking, but it is not given. Now, when such a situation happens, probably you need to move to the second stage of prayer, and that is seeking.
First you ask. You have a need; you ask. But if you ask and it is not given, then probably it is time that we do need to seek. That is to say, we need to seek the Lord’s mind. We need to seek the Lord as to why our asking is not answered.
Is it because we have asked amiss? Or is it because there is something in our lives that the Lord is trying to say to us? You know, sometimes we ask and the answer is not forthcoming. It is time that we should examine ourselves before the Lord. Maybe the Lord is trying to say something to us.
But this is seeking. This is not asking; this is seeking—seeking to know the mind of the Lord.
And when we seek, and we know what the Lord’s mind is, then we can move on to the third stage of prayer, and that is knocking.
Now, you do not knock on the wall; you knock on the door. In other words, after you know the will of God, you begin to see His way. And when you see His way, it is like a door. You know that this is the way that God will work, and you just knock at the door and keep on knocking, and it shall be opened to you.
So I think the whole verse teaches us that we need to pray through. If we begin to pray, do not just stop in the stage of asking. We may have to go on to seeking, and then finally to knocking.
When you begin to knock, you have already found the door. In other words, you already know what the will of God is. So you know that, if you keep on knocking, it will be opened to you.
And in Luke 18, I think the parable speaks of the same thing. The Lord said we should always pray and not faint. That is to say, not just pray once and then give up, thinking that it is hopeless.
So the Lord uses a parable which is an extreme case, as a contrast. The unjust judge is just the opposite of our Heavenly Father. And yet you find this widow: she has a need, and she is not ashamed to continue to ask, continue to seek, and continue to knock, until finally that unjust judge cannot bear it any more. He vindicates her and avenges her of her adversary.
And it is used as a contrast. Knowing that our Heavenly Father is so willing to hear us, so ready to give us, so available, and always wanting to bring us to the ultimate, surely, if we keep on asking, keep on seeking, and keep on knocking, He will very quickly open the door for us.
And this is faith. This is faith. Faith is believing that He will answer, and just keeping on—not giving in, not giving up.
And then you find plenty of instances and examples in the Scripture. You find Abraham. When God revealed to Abraham His mind concerning Sodom and Gomorrah, immediately Abraham took this matter up in prayer, asking.
And he did not just ask once: “If there are fifty righteous men in the city, will You not spare them? Will the Judge of all the earth condemn the righteous with the unrighteous?” And God said, “Of course not. If there are fifty people, I will spare the city.”
And then Abraham continued on with forty-five, and thirty, and twenty, until he came to ten. In other words, you find he kept on asking, kept on seeking, kept on knocking.
And even though there were not even ten in the city, and the city was destroyed, Abraham’s prayer was heard because God delivered Lot out of Sodom.
And the same thing you find in the case of Elijah. After that victory on Mount Carmel, Elijah went to the top of the mountain and he prayed for rain. And he prayed seven times—not just once, but seven times.
He sent his servant to see if there was any sign of rain. At first there was nothing. Six times there was nothing. But on the seventh time, there was just a dark cloud like a man’s hand. And the prayer was heard.
Keep on asking. Pray through. Do not give up, but pray through.
And you find the same thing with our Lord Jesus. Even in the garden of Gethsemane, you find that He prayed three times, until He had prayed through and come to know the will of the Father.
And Paul did the same thing. Three times he prayed over this matter of the thorn in his flesh until he got the answer. God said, “My grace is sufficient for thee.”
So throughout the Scripture you will find that this is one lesson that we need to learn. If we want our prayer to be effective, we have to learn to pray things through.
Otherwise, we will just touch the surface, hit it, and then go on, and we will never learn in this matter of prayer. When we pray for one thing today and pray for another thing tomorrow, as a matter of fact, we are not even waiting for an answer.
And this can be the same thing in a prayer time. We pray for the same thing all the time, and probably sometimes, when we go over the same thing a few times, people will feel a little bit tired or faint and think, “Why should we go over it again?” But the question is: Have we prayed through?
It is much better if we take up fewer matters and see these matters through than to go around the world and pray for everything and never wait for an answer.
I feel this is a danger in our prayer time. Oftentimes we try to touch so many things around the world. Yes, there are so many things that need to be prayed for, but we just pray once and it is forever forgotten. In that way, we will never learn. Really, we never learn what prayer is.
We need to pray and pray things through until we get the answer—whether the answer is yes or the answer is no, but we need an answer.
You know, we have to pray until the Lord says, “No, that is enough. Do not ask any more,” just like Moses. He pleaded with the Lord to let him go into the land, and the Lord said, “Do not speak any more to Me of this matter.” Now, if it comes to that point, all right, we will stop praying. That is no.
But otherwise, if the Lord should give us a burden, and if it is a burden, then we really need to keep on praying. We may not be able to pray week after week over the same things, but I do feel that we who are at a prayer meeting should not be so forgetful that, after the prayer meeting is over, the whole thing is over.
I do feel that we should take these things to heart, and in our private prayer we should continue to pray over these matters until we see the answers.
So may the Lord help us that we may learn how to pray, and pray through.
This concludes Brother Kong’s ministry, number 23. Brother John Kennedy continues with message number 24.
I am not planning to take up a great deal of time. I want to share just a few words from the Scripture, and then possibly say a few words concerning the ministry in which I am involved, that it might offer a few points for prayer at the end.
So let us first of all go over to the book of the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 4. No doubt it is a familiar portion of Scripture to most of you. We will read from Acts 4:23-31.
The background of what we are going to read in these verses is, of course, the holding in custody of Peter and John because of their witness for the Lord.
Acts 4:23-31:
And being let go, they came to their own company, and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said unto them.
And they, when they heard it, lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, O Lord, Thou that didst make the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that in them is:
Who by the Holy Spirit, by the mouth of our father David Thy servant, didst say, Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples imagine vain things?
The kings of the earth set themselves in array, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord, and against His Anointed:
for of a truth in this city against Thy holy Servant Jesus, whom Thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, were gathered together,
to do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel foreordained to come to pass.
And now, Lord, look upon their threatenings: and grant unto Thy servants to speak Thy word with all boldness,
while Thou stretchest forth Thy hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Thy holy Servant Jesus.
And when they had prayed, the place was shaken wherein they were gathered together; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spake the word of God with boldness.
This, of course, is an account—no doubt a very partial account—of one of the earliest prayer meetings. Peter and John had been taken into custody. They had been questioned about their preaching, and having been let go, they returned to their own company, the company of believers.
They told all that had happened to them, all that the chief priests and elders had said, and then the company together began to pray. The substance of their prayers is recorded from verse 24 onwards.
Had we been in such circumstances, I wonder what our thoughts would have been, or what would have been the direction of our prayers. What the two disciples had gone through at this time was symptomatic of the general opposition which had arisen to the preaching of the gospel.
They had sought to be faithful to the Lord, and yet in the midst of their faithfulness they were questioned, imprisoned, beaten, and so on.
Yet, as they gathered together to pray, there is no questioning of God’s ways. There is no asking, “Lord, why should this have happened to us? We have sought to follow You faithfully, and this is the result.”
But first of all, there is a recognition of the sovereignty of God. That is, of course, in the word with which this prayer begins: “Lord.” Our King James Version says, “Sovereign Lord.”
Whatever may have happened, it all happened according to the sovereign will of God somehow. Although it may have been difficult to understand, yet the Lord was there. He was above all; He was behind it all; He was over it all.
There was no questioning as to why or wherefore. They began their time of prayer with this recognition of the sovereignty of God, the sovereign grace of God. Whatever had happened, He knew about it. Whatever had happened, He had allowed it.
Thou art the God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them.
You have created the world, and obviously You have power to determine the course of the world. Basically, nothing happens without Your knowledge and without You allowing it.
They recognized that whatever happened to them, they were not basically in the hands of men; they were in the hands of the Lord.
And of course, this was the attitude of our Lord, was it not, when He was questioned before Pilate? Pilate asked Him questions and He refused to answer. Pilate said to Him, “You are not going to speak to me? Do You not know that I have power to crucify You, and I have power to release You?”
And what did the Lord say? The Lord said, “Thou wouldest have no power against Me, except it were given thee from above.” “I am not in your hands, Pilate. I am in the hands of My Father.”
And this, of course, is basically what the disciples here recognized. Their prayers began with a recognition of the sovereignty of the Lord.
There is no request even to save them from these circumstances or to take them out of these circumstances. But there is a recognition of the fact that, if they are going to follow the Lord, difficulties or persecution in some way or another are inevitable.
Paul said that later in his last letter, did he not? In 2 Timothy 3:12, I think it is:
Yea, and all that would live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
There is a promise from the Word of God. We do not like that type of promise quite so well, that all who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
And they go back to the book of Psalms and say:
Why did the nations rage,
and the peoples meditate vain things?
The kings of the earth set themselves in array,
and the rulers were gathered together,
against the Lord, and against His Christ.
They quote the words of Psalm 2. “We have suffered for Your name’s sake, but after all, You told us that was going to happen. Even through David, so centuries ago, You said it. This is only the fulfilment of that which You prophesied.”
And, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself had told the same thing to His disciples. You can read of that, for example, in John 15.
They look back upon the events of Calvary and the events subsequent to Calvary, in which they themselves had been implicated, and they said, “Why, this is all just a fulfilment of that which You have said was going to come to pass.”
So they did not seem to be in the least surprised at what had happened. In fact, the indication is that, if something different had taken place, they would have been more surprised than they were on this occasion. This is only a fulfilment of what You have said.
That is something that we do well to remember. We always need to remember that, as God’s people in an alien world, we are different—or we should be.
The Lord went to the cross that He might sanctify a people; He might set apart a people. The writer to the Hebrews says:
Therefore let us go forth unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.
He suffered without the gate in order that He might sanctify a people, set apart a people who would be distinct as He was distinct. And the price, the cost of that distinction, is difficulties, problems, maybe persecution, whatever it may be. But there it is.
And the disciples express here their recognition of this. “And now, Lord, look upon their threatenings.” And what was their one request?
Now, as I have already said, these few verses are no doubt not a complete account of this early prayer meeting. It was probably longer than the length of time we have taken to read the verses. But they say, “Now, Lord, look upon their threatenings, and grant unto Thy bondservants to speak Thy word.”
This was their one concern, their basic concern: that they should be witnesses whatever the circumstances. And that prayer, of course, was answered—abundantly answered. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the Word of God with boldness.
Now, no doubt there were many other things which they did mention before the Lord. But the point is that this was the emphasis of the whole gathering. This was their one desire, which dominated all other desires. Or, to use the language we were using on Sunday morning, this was their priority.
The priority was the purpose of God, not themselves—their comfort or their own well-being. Not that God was disinterested in these things, but their priority was the will of God and the purpose of God.
I attend many prayer meetings, and sometimes it seems to me that our prayer meetings are so self-centred. We are so concerned with our own little needs and our aches and our pains.
It is not that God does not want us to bring these things to Him. The Lord certainly is concerned about them all. And yet, in our concern for these things, we seem so often to forget that which should be the object of our praying: His purpose, the coming of His kingdom, that His will might be done upon earth, that we should be witnesses whatever the circumstances may be in which we are called to live.
Whether we are at ease or whether we are in bonds, we should live in a manner which will be a testimony to Him. And this, of course, was the whole basis of the disciples’ praying here.
And how we need to watch that. Sometimes, I think, the priorities of our lives are very often revealed in the way we pray, in our prayer meetings together. That really shows the things which we consider to be the most important.
And remember, in determining our priorities, it is not a question of choosing between good and bad. It is a question of choosing between that which is good and that which is better.
The great enemies, so often, in our spiritual lives—or to our advancement and usefulness for the Lord—are not sins, not things which are wrong, but things which are all right, quite good in themselves, but which should take second place to other things which are more important.
We have our priorities wrong.
Our Lord, of course, brought this out when He taught His disciples how to pray. “Teach us how to pray.” All right, “You pray after this manner.” Then we have what we call the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:
Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.
Give us this day our daily bread.
It comes a long way down the list. Not that it is left out—it is not left out—but it comes a long way down the list. So often we seem to begin at the wrong end, and then we do not have time to get back to the beginning again before we have to close.
There should be a concern for the will of the Lord, the purposes of the Lord, the kingdom of the Lord—that His kingdom might be extended; the interests of the Lord in His people; the interests of the Lord in the world; that we should be fulfilling the purpose for which God has put us here, the purpose for which God has put us in this part of His vineyard.
Not just that we might be kept in good health and strength. The Lord wants us to be there, but not just that. He wants us to be fulfilling His purpose. And our prayers need to be directed to His purpose.
I just want to leave these very few thoughts with you, that we may be able to determine right priorities in our prayer. It seems to me that that is evident from this very short account of this early prayer meeting of the church.
And how abundantly that was answered. The answer to this prayer, this request, of course, is the rest of the book of the Acts of the Apostles.
There were plenty of difficulties, plenty of persecutions, plenty of problems, but they spoke the Word of God with boldness. And thus the churches grew, and the gospel extended.
Within the space of one generation, the Word of God had spread throughout the known world—what, to the society in which the disciples lived, was considered the known world. Remarkable, remarkable feat, we might say.
It was not a feat of man, of course. It was by the power of God, but it was an answer to these prayers where God’s people saw their true priorities.
And remember, the twelve—or the eleven, rather—who were left when our Lord was crucified, they were not a very wonderful bunch of people. When they saw the way things were going, of course, they all ran away. That is how they began.
Yet what God did through that small beginning—because, we might say, they learned to pray right. They knew that which was the mind of God, and that was what they wanted above everything else and beyond all considerations.
And so, as we spend time in prayer this evening, let this fact be before us, and let it always be before us. This is something, I believe, for which we have constantly to struggle.
Many things in our spiritual lives are objects of spiritual struggle. Here is one: to maintain a right sense of priorities, to be looking unto Him.
And the Lord will meet our needs when we are concerned with His needs. Seek first the kingdom. Seek first His interests, and your needs will be met.
May the Lord make these things real to us.
It has been suggested that I say just a few words about India, that I might give you a point or two for prayer. Again, I am not going to speak at any length on the subject.
We are living in an age, I believe, of tremendous potential. I believe that the Lord is going to do great things in India over these coming years, in a country which is open to the gospel.
But if that is going to be fulfilled, if the Lord’s purpose is going to be fulfilled, I feel there is a great need to think of the strength of the church. By church, I mean those people who are the Lord’s people, who have a desire to move on in His ways.
And I would ask you to pray particularly for leadership. This, of course, is a need all over the world. It is not only in India: the need for mature local leadership, and the need of an adequate ministry among God’s people.
This, of course, is a need which is worldwide. Everywhere one goes, those of you who travel around a little will know what I mean when I say that everywhere we find hungry people. People are hungry for the Word of God, for the things of the Lord.
Some who have caught something of a vision of what the Lord wants begin to gather together, and yet they seem to lack any sense of direction. There is nobody to give them anything. There is no ministry. And this, of course, is a tremendous need in India.
There is a lot said in the Scriptures, in the pastoral epistles, for example, about the tremendous importance of a consistent and sound ministry of the Word among the people of God. And this is something which is so lacking.
As you pray for that in your own country, put a little word into the Lord about the need in India along this same line. How we need to see God raise up men of spiritual stature, men from the country, Indian brothers of spiritual stature and ability, who will be able to minister the Word to His people.
So I would make these two requests: remember the work of God in India along these lines. There is certainly an openness for the gospel and a hunger in many sections of society such as we have not seen for a long time.
I believe there is a greater hunger for the Word of God in many parts of India today than there ever has been, certainly since I went there just over thirty years ago.
I would be glad of your prayers also for the few remaining weeks that I have here in North America. I am now coming to the end of my time in this country, in the United States and Canada.
This has been a great joy, to meet with the Lord’s people in various places throughout the land, as it has been a joy to have fellowship with you over these past few days.
I go tomorrow to Washington, D.C. I will be there over the weekend. On Monday I go to Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. The following weekend I am in New York City.
Then, on the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth, I go to Adamsville, which is near Providence, Rhode Island. From there I return to England.
So, as the Lord enables you, I would be glad of your prayers for the ministry of these final few weeks in this country, that the Lord may in some way use the Word and continue to strengthen His people.
These past weeks and months have certainly been a blessing to me. I will be glad of your prayers as I return to India in the not-distant future to take up the ministry there again, that I may be strengthened for whatever the Lord has for me.
I do not think there is any country in the world, really, where I would rather be today. I have been there for thirty years, and I am all set for another thirty, if the Lord will. Please pray.
This concludes message number 24 by Brother Kennedy. Message number 25 begins again with Brother Kong. This is unfortunately a very poor recording and has a great deal of static which could not be cleared.
Luke 11:5-8:
And He said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves;
for a friend of mine is come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him;
and he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee?
I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will arise and give him as many as he needeth.
Our Lord was praying in a certain place. As the disciples watched Him, they saw that the way the Lord prayed was different. So they asked the Lord to teach them to pray.
After teaching them the prayer beginning, “Our Father who art in heaven,” our Lord continued teaching them how to pray. Then we find in verses 9 and 10:
Ask, and it shall be given you;
seek, and ye shall find;
knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
For every one that asketh receiveth;
and he that seeketh findeth;
and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
Now this immediately leads us to consider how we should pray. Our Lord uses a parable. It is the parable of a friend going to his friend, asking for help for another friend.
So you find altogether three different friendships. The one who prays is a friend; the one to whom he prays is a friend; and the one for whom he prays is a friend.
It shows us that there is a relationship in prayer—not only the relationship of the Father and the children. In the so-called Lord’s Prayer, He said, “Our Father.” That is a relationship, a basic relationship of Father and children. We come to God because He is our Father, and we pray because we are His children.
But here you find our Lord Jesus showing us another relationship: not just the relationship of Father and children, but the relationship of friends.
What a condescension that God is willing to take us as His friends. You know, to be friends, there needs to be a kind of likeness, something that you can really share with one another. But here you find God condescending Himself to be our Friend. We are His friends.
You remember our Lord Jesus said, “I do not call you servants any longer.” Now, we are His servants. He can command us to do whatever He wants us to do without explaining why. We have no right to ask for an explanation. We have to give Him implicit obedience as bondservants.
But the Lord said that He does not treat us merely as servants. In other words, His ways are shared, His secrets are shared. There is a relationship between us and Him. It is a relationship of friendship—a sharing of thoughts, a sharing of burdens.
You remember, in Proverbs it is said:
There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.
And He is, I think, the One who sticks to us closer than a brother in the flesh.
So here you find this man who, at midnight, went to knock on the door of his friend. And he did it not for himself; he did it for another friend.
This man did not go to his friend for his own need. He went to his friend for the need of his friend. At midnight he knocked. Why? Because he knew, as friends, he would not be refused.
Now, would we dare to knock on the door of someone at midnight, asking for something? That is the wrong time. But if your friendship is so deep, you can knock at your friend’s door at any time, even at midnight, and you have the assurance that it will be opened.
So first of all, there is a friendship between us. He is willing to be our Friend, and because He is our Friend, we dare to go to Him, even in the middle of the night, believing that He will hear.
But you find another thing here. This man had a friend coming to him, probably late at night, and he had nothing to put on the table.
But his friendship with that friend was so deep, he could not bear to see his friend hungry. So that is the reason why he went to his friend and asked for three loaves.
Now, is our friendship for our friends as deep? Probably we will knock at the door of our friend at midnight for our own need, but will we knock at the door of our Friend at midnight for the need of another?
If God shows such friendship to us, should we not show more friendship to our friends? Should we not be more concerned for them?
Now, it is always true: we have nothing to put on the table. All we have is a willingness, a desire for our friend. We have to go to our Father, to our God, for the supply.
Oftentimes you will find that, because you consider someone as your friend in the Lord—your brothers and sisters—they have needs, and you feel deeply with them because there is a friendship there. But you realize that you have nothing to put on the table.
The supply is not in us; the supply is in God. But thank God, we can go to Him as friends and ask for supply for our friends.
That is the reason why you find the Scripture says, “Pray for one another.” Not just pray for yourself, but pray for one another.
One reason why the prayer is answered is because of the friendship. But the Lord goes a little bit further. He said, even as friends, he will not get up because he says, “My children are already with me in bed. I cannot get up.”
Even though he is his friend, he refuses. But because of his shamelessness—his persistence—he will get up and open the door and give him as much as he wants.
Now, is it not a shame that you should knock on the door of your friend at midnight? Are you ashamed of that? Is it not a shame that you continue to knock and refuse to go away when you are not answered, or when the door is not opened?
But because of his shamelessness, even if friendship will not do it, he will have to get up and open it and give him as much as he wants.
So here you find the Lord encouraging us as to how to pray. As we come to pray, we pray as friends. And we even go further than that: we pray with shameless boldness.
Sometimes our prayer is too shy. We dare not press. Dare we open our mouths? Dare we continue to pray? Dare we come to Him, refusing to be refused? Are we so daring?
What the Lord is trying to teach us is this: when you come to Him, in other things be modest; but in prayer, be bold. Let us be bold—not presumptuous, but bold because we know we can count on His friendship.
You know, I cannot remember who it was, but many years ago I heard of something that happened. This brother said, “It does not matter, because our friendship can stand it.”
That is the attitude we should see in our God. No matter what happens, His friendship remains. He will not refuse us. He will give us as much as we need.
We have to knock and continue to knock. So, when the Lord says, “Ask, and it shall be given,” in the original He says, “Keep on asking.” He says, “Keep on seeking. Keep on knocking, and it shall be opened.”
Now, oftentimes we dare not knock. We may come to the door already, but we dare not knock. Sometimes we just knock very softly. But let us knock and knock and knock. Be shameless.
So this is the way that the Lord teaches us to pray. May the Lord help us to be shameless as we come to the best of friends.